Tag: Adam Schwaninger

She protec

She protec

She protec

She attac

But most importantly

She bac

Deemo the Leech rejoins the Dead Setters after babies and basketball leagues in time to watch Duskwall burn in The Brightstone Riots Caper.

Endgame. The crew is Tier IV and Strong hold (modified to weak due to wartime), and is at war with the Bluecoats. Rook the Cutter and Ulf Ironborn (+3 status) rally the Skovlander Refugees throughout the city behind the dubious leadership of the Reconciled and Queen Tamar, the first and last Empress of Skovland.

Rook, who’s also a Skov, wants to strike against Imperial authority, but the Dead Setters have plans within plans. Richter the Spider wants to end the Bluecoats war by taking over the Bluecoats from the inside. The riot is the crew’s way into Brightstone so they can take down Commander Bowmore of the Watch and Magistrate Rolan Wott. If these notables are not there to organize a defense, there’s a chance the City Council might acquiesce to some of the mob’s demands, and between Richter and Teatime the Whisper’s social pull, the mob is convinced they want Mr. Falseworth (Richter’s fake identity) on the Council.

This score was played across two two-hour sessions. Last week, the crew led the Skovlanders and other blue-collar forces across Brightstone’s west twin bridges. A well-timed flashback involving the Setters’ cohort of pit fighters dealt with Bluecoat and military leadership, then Rook and Ulf assaulted one bridge while Raven the Hound and Teatime hit the other with sorcery. Brightstone became a war zone, with house-to-house combat, fleeing nobles, and military hulls resorting to indiscriminate grapeshot to maintain their hold on the blocks between the mob and Whitecrown.

Teatime was supposed to help Raven take down Rolan Wott, but ended up fighting heavy hulls instead. Tempest proved potent but stress-intensive, and at 3 Trauma, Teatime didn’t want go down fighting for peasants or anything foolish like that. He attempted an arcane boobytrap but it went horrible awry – the ghost bomb ripped the souls of his Skov protectors apart and left him amidst corpses while six military hulls bore down on him.

Rook, Ulf, and Richter used their Shadows’ ghost passages to bypass much of the fighting and enter Commander Bowmore’s estate unnoticed. From there, they rolled nothing but sixes. Bowmore’s personal guard were wiped out and the Commander himself killed when Richter threw dynamite at the remaining survivors. No witnesses.

During the chaos, Raven and her Reconciled friend, Nyryx, eliminated Rolan Wott’s bodyguards and his retainer whisper (who tried and sadly failed to turn Nyryx against Raven). We ended that session with Raven’s gun to Wott’s head as the magistrate begged for his life.

Come With Me If You Want to Not Die

This past session, Rook’s player couldn’t make it but Deemo’s player could! It had been a while since we had our Leech back, and because 1) Deemo’s current LTPs were building a hull body and 2) I was feeling that endgame feeling, we decided that Deemo was gone for so long because she was making herself into an immortal steampunk Terminator. I told them don’t worry about fitting into the riot – that’s why we have flashbacks.

Teatime weathered the hulls’ opening barrage, but at the cost of all his armor. 3 stress left and six hulls to contend with is textbook desperate situation. Luckily Deemo decided to spider-climb off a building wall and smash one of the ironclad-tachikoma legs clean off! She took a nasty hit in return (most of the rolls this session were 5s, not the previous foray’s streak of sixes), but hulls have integral armor. Beyond that, Deemo’s most powerful ability was perhaps the fact she was coming in with an open stress track and could feed Teatime assist dice and take protect actions. Deemo’ leapt into the fray and managed to sabotage one hull so it stumbled into its fellows, clumping them up for Teatime’s final desperate attempt. He pushed himself, took increased effect from Deemo’s setup action, and ripped the souls out of the hulls.

He got a five. Whoever made these automatons wasn’t going to leave military-grade war machines lying around dormant, so when their spirits stopped animating their bodies, the hulls detonated their powder magazines. Deemo took the protect action and snorted lethal harm for both her and Teatime. Between all her worn armor, plus Forged in the Fire, she didn’t come away too badly.

Meanwhile, Rolan Wott talked his way into serving the Dead Setters in their conspiracy to insinuate Richter into the Bluecoats. His legal expertise and council knowledge would serve his new masters well… at least until new, more powerful masters displaced them in turn.

Live Long Enough to Become the Villain

Here’s where we left the Dead Setters:

1. Richter Falseworth is Commander of the Watch, protected by a few cells of bluecoats loyal to him, the whim of the mob, and Rolan Wott’s legal webs.

2. Deemo is a hull. Destroy – Discover – Acquire. What will she create next?

3. Teatime explores Lord Scurlock’s “Dracula castle” out in the Deathlands and, with the help of Mr. Clicks, Scurlock’s former hull servant, discovers the missing secrets to becoming an immortal vampire. He holds off, though – he has time.

4. Teatime and Richter are invited to join the Circle of Flame. They’ve had some positions open up, and would rather offer peace in order to bring their missing Eye of Kotar back to the fold instead of fighting and possibly losing more artifacts.

As for Raven and Rook, and Duskwall itself, I’m hoping to have one final wrapup session where everyone can make it. I don’t think we’ll roll dice – just talk about what kind of endings everyone sees for their characters. I’m not coming back to Duskwall for a while, but if/when I do, it would be really neat to bring up a new crew with the old Dead Setters as the NPCs around the city.

#heestcomplete

When It’s Time to Party We Will Party Hard, a Glow in the Dark story

When It’s Time to Party We Will Party Hard, a Glow in the Dark story

When It’s Time to Party We Will Party Hard, a Glow in the Dark story

A reverse assault! Our first instance of social harm! Teenage love! Indoor bonfires! Burning to death! Read on!

The Big Game Approaches

Last downtime, Johnny Tabernacle the Leftover was trying to patch things up with the Boneyard Bulldogs, a sports-themed raider tribe. Coach Boss’ playbooks prophesied of the apocalyptic Big Game, the second Ragnarok promised by the Bulldogs’ god Mad’n. Johnny’s first trauma came about at the hands of the Bulldogs, and the moonbase survivor was obsessed with football. He’d been using his downtimes building this opportunity to basically do wasteland Blood Bowl. The Bulldogs were willing to call this truce, but they had a condition.

The Bulldogs needed time to train, and their sometimes-allies, the Free Radicals, needed another place to crash. The Third Rails said they were okay with visitors, and went to prepare their settlement, Prism City, for the new arrivals.

This was part of the Diplomacy fallout/entanglement we’d rolled previously. The tribe accepted the favor, and during the deal we agreed that if they did this for the Bulldogs, their faction status would raise back up to neutral.

House Guests

The Free Radicals are a Tier I nomadic raider tribe, and my default “it’s okay to whoop these people” group. They believe the wasteland is the afterlife, and when they die they go back to fight alongside the Atomic Prophet in the Last War. This makes them fearless, hedonistic, and wasteful. They’re locusts – a mix between the Wee Free Men, the dirtbike gang from Fury Road, and extreme sports/energy drink bros (think https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO2Abp0FbA0). Inspired the most by King Radical from Dr. McNinja.

It was the Bulldogs’ hope that dealing with the Radicals would lead to both the Third Rails and the Radicals being weakened or even wiped out. What happened instead was Johnny suggested they throw a party. Zeke the Junker suggested they spike the booze, and Dan Halen the Reaper threw in his supply of drugs to help. This was essentially their plan for the “score” – a Deception plan via spiking the drinks. The engagement roll was Risky, which made sense given the Radicals’ volatile nature.

Young Love

Billy the Feral (a tween vault survivor gone feral) decided he was in love with Princess Yolo Jones, one of the Radicals. We started a clock and Billy managed to make some meager progress by bringing the young Yolo some fresh kills, as if he were a cat or something. It was a mixed success, however, so while Princess Yolo was moved by Billy’s ability as a provider, the meager attention she returned just fueled Billy’s aspirations. He took level 2 harm “Smitten” and didn’t even consider resisting it.

What’s Yours is Mine

The party started around dark, down in the Prism City underground. A decrepit corpse of a mall dinner theater was ground zero for an indoor bonfire and bacchanalia. While the party raged, Zeke went topside to loot the Free Radicals’ bikes. He went with the tribe’s robot butler/driver/muscle, Mr. Clanky. This proved to be wise as two of the Radicals, too wounded or exhausted to join the party, spotted Zeke picking through the vehicles (2 supplies looted, but mixed success). I rolled fortune to see if the Radicals had anything loud or especially dangerous on them. I rolled a 1. The hand crossbow pinged off Zeke’s armor and then Mr. Clanky brutalized both nomads in the style of an Elysium drone. Now it was a party.

Burning Man

Billy saw Boost, one of the Radicals, sidle up to Princess Yolo and start dancing with her. Obviously, the young boy’s mind went directly to murder. Dan Halen noticed Billy angling through the dancing crowd towards Boost and started a wasteland mosh pit to cover what he figured was about to happen. Because of Dan’s setup action, Billy got increased effect when he Prowled up and shoved Boost away from Yolo – right into the bonfire. Some of the Radicals spun on Billy. Some gestured in some kind of religious observance as Boost died (and presumably respawned to fight alongside the Prophet). It was clear the scene was turning ugly, so Johnny triggered the ancient sprinklers, which had been hacked via flashback to spray sedatives sourced from the Third Rails’ drug-dealing mutant allies the Monarchs. Johnny critted and the Free Radicals were pacified – for now.

XP for the XP God!

We wrapped there. I’m not sure if this was a cliffhanger or just the end of the score. It was a fun and different kind of session, though. “Surviving house guests” doesn’t seem very post-apocalyptic, but with the characters being who they were, I think it wasn’t too off-brand, so to speak.

I felt that having such a simple premise allowed everyone to shine RP-wise – this was borne out by the fairly high XP rewards. It was nice to push the boundaries of things you can do in the wasteland too. Not everything’s fighting (and tbh not everything has been fighting so far), and it’s good that Glow in the Dark can support variety like that.

This was also interesting to run because it was essentially a social attack on the PCs’ settlement. The engagement roll was about how prepared they would be when something could go wrong. The worst outcomes I had in mind were pretty bad – I mean, this is the tribe’s home – but the dice stayed out of that 1-3 range this time.

Mechanics-wise, I feel Blades is at its best at Tier I and II. Players are more confident, characters have more special abilities to play with, and the tribes/crews aren’t always outclassed. We’re here now with the Third Rails and coming back to this level of play after our crazy Tier IV vanilla Blades game and our beginning Tier 0 crime family in Jason Eley’s Copperhead County game really hit a sweet spot for me.

Design Update

I’ve been working on v7 of the Glow in the Dark rules. I’ve moved to InDesign (hoo boy what a change), incorporated all the art, and have been doing a ton of reading and re-reading and tweaking. I want to have some random tables in the game. They’re fun and I think very appropriate for this setting. I also have made enough progress on roll20 character sheets that we could use them for last night’s game. The faction and tribe sheets aren’t started yet, but the character sheet works pretty well. When I release this version, I’d like to make it as easy as possible for people to get into it and that means roll20 support.

#glowinthedarkrpg

The #CopperheadCounty Best Brands Heist

The #CopperheadCounty Best Brands Heist

The #CopperheadCounty Best Brands Heist

Myself, Adam Maunz, and Tyler Ellis, playing as the Hunnicutt family, set the bar low for future quiet criminal operations in Patterson, TN. Our second score for Jason Eley’s modern southern crime hack saw the Hunnicutt brothers Zeke (the Stringer) and Earl (the Cleaner) robbing a “Best Brands” big box store the week of its grand opening. Their loose cannon uncle, Eustace (the Mover), was unfortunately present as well.

Things actually started off really smoothly. We got a six on engagement, and kept that controlled position through Eustace and Zeke’s moderately-stealthy nighttime jaunt to the rear of the store while Earl kept lookout. This was a tricky choice, since Earl, as a Cleaner, is good at sneaking and lookout, but we decided Zeke’s teamwork abilities would be best served bolstering Eustace’s mediocre thievery since neither of the other two were good at spotting trouble.

Steve Satterfield, MVP

Things went south when Earl spotted one of the strip mall security carts rolling his way. He decided to hide and things went from risky to desperate. Earl was rolling 2+ dice on all his stuff here. Hiding, ambushing, fighting, this was definitely in his wheelhouse, but the dice were just not with him. Steve the security guard was going to spot him. Earl decided to act first and tried to taser the guard. No dice. Steve called for backup. Earl tried to just shoot the guy. Pope of Nope. Steve clubbed Earl in the head as their desperate struggle alerted Zeke and Eustace, dealing level 3 harm to the Hunnicutt sibling.

Something to note here – desperate situations are friggin’ desperate in Jason’s games. I’m actually not positive if it’s how he personally tunes his session or if it’s in the CC rules, but you can’t resist consequences from desperate stuff (edit: This is unpacked more in the comments). Shit got real when Steve clubbed Earl.

We All Float Down in Traumatown

We were all really high on stress from trying to keep things under control in the first half of this score, but like the intro to Heat, when you can’t stay quiet anymore, you’ve gotta commit. Zeke had a special ability And Knock Em’ Down, where actions following a setup action can push for free. With Zeke guiding Eustace, the mad uncle cashed in the free push for effect (they’d need great effect to slam through the shuttered facade and still hit Steve with enough force to put him down) and then pushed himself for a bonus die, which trauma’d him out. I chose Vicious, because in my head Eustace is a human trash fire and hopefully lives long enough to drag his family to hell with him. The dice gods relented and allowed a six to come forth.

Eustace hotwired the forklift in the Best Brands stockroom and charged through the store, crashing through the facade and catching Steve in the mouth with the forks’ edge.

Something else to note: I wouldn’t have minded dropping out of the scene at this point. Eustace took a trauma, after all, but Jason floated the idea of possibly having trauma work more like this other game Monsterhearts (I think some people might have heard of it) – essentially when you trauma out, you can still take part in actions but you must embody your new trauma. This was like a birthday present for me. Opportunities to be more vicious? Yes please. Now, on a subtler mechanical level, staying in play actually means you can burn through your stress and screw yourself over even faster, so it’s not like Jason’s being nothing but nice here. Still, birthday present.

Bad People Making Bad Life Choices

Did we have to shoot Steve’s backup? No, poor Kirk King didn’t have to die in a bullet-riddled golf cart. We could’ve used Steve’s walkie-talkie to intimidate the guy to stand down or just run for it. He was in a golf cart, for chrissakes. Again, the dice wanted blood and granted us a six on a team Fight action.

Did we have to set the Best Brands on fire to cover our tracks and destroy any video evidence? No, but we were pressed for time, Earl was hurt, and it was the most vicious, direct solution.

Did we have to burn our bridges (and Claim opportunity) with our fence, Rich Sturges? No, but people got XP triggers to feed, man. Gameplay-wise, this is probably going to steer us towards drugs, guns, and gang violence and away from “cleaner” options like straight-up theft. Still, two men died over smartphones that night that didn’t need to. Is this the first step onto a slippery slope for the Hunnicutts or is this looking out over the cliff and stepping back?

The other guys can chime in of course, but for my part I had a great time being a bad person yet having Eustace’s descent into violence come from his nephew getting wrecked so hard. Still, in the faux TV show of our game, Eustace would definitely be the “obvious creep” character. Zeke doesn’t feel like he’s tainted in the same way, and Earl at least tries to act like a proper corrupt cop.

The Dead Setters go to war with the Bluecoats and murder their Patron in the I Think We’re Domestic Terrorists Now…

The Dead Setters go to war with the Bluecoats and murder their Patron in the I Think We’re Domestic Terrorists Now…

The Dead Setters go to war with the Bluecoats and murder their Patron in the I Think We’re Domestic Terrorists Now Caper.

Ingredients:

1 Hidden lair inside Strangford Manor about to be discovered by the police

1 Lord Scurlock, patron of the Dead Setters, pressed back into the Inspectors by imperial decree and quasi-forced to assist in the capture of his proteges

Countless Tier VI bombs and artillery shells stolen from an Imperial Military resupply train

Leviathan blood/electroplasm supplies set to interact with the bombs to create destruction in the ghost field as well as on the physical plane

1 Leaked intel given to one of the crew’s surviving friendly contacts, Jeren the Bluecoat clerk

Season liberally with Bluecoats, Brigade, Spirit Wardens, and Inspectors.

Add pit fighter and rover cohorts to taste.

Carefully fold in the bombs and electroplasm to Strangford Manor. When Scurlock arrives, instantly bake Strangford Manor at 4000 degrees until rubble. If Scurlock isn’t visibly sublimated, confirm his presence manually while following the steps for All-Out War, below.

All-Out War

After the manor is cooked thoroughly, add the pit fighters, rovers, and PCs to the Bluecoats, Spirit Wardens, Brigade, and Inspectors. Mix well. Only roll sixes and crits during group actions because of Synchronized.

Keeping What You Kill

After the authorities have been temporarily routed but before reinforcements from the military arrive, use the Eye of Kotar aligned with spectacles crafted from mirror-demon shards to obliterate Scurlock’s broken form with arcane energy. Remember to use special armor to laugh at the otherwise terrible psychic cost for meddling with such powerful artifacts. Enjoy XP for Unstable and Vicious, then take over Scurlock Manor as your own.

Tier IV crews are no joke. The guys have Mastery now as well. This war with the cops has been brewing for a long time, as well as Lord Scurlock’s assassination. The players weren’t feeling the various “favors” he was asking of them, although they made enough progress to string him along and allay suspicions. I thought by having Scurlock rejoin the Inspectors, it might prompt some fun Departed-style inside intel/cat-and-mouse stuff, but the players were right in that at Tier IV, they didn’t need him anymore, and he was a dangerous enemy to have. Better to trick him and get him done in one (incredibly costly) fell swoop than try a half measure and miss.

We’re blowing up the setting, but there’s martial law now and we’re really in an endgame here. We want to see this war through and then we’re going to wrap the campaign.

#heestcomplete

Had a fun downtime phase in Jason Eley’s #CopperheadCounty game last night.

Had a fun downtime phase in Jason Eley’s #CopperheadCounty game last night.

Had a fun downtime phase in Jason Eley’s #CopperheadCounty game last night. We’re playing the Blood faction, which is a close-knit family gang (the Hunnicutts) who are trying to raise money for Ezekiel Hunnicutt’s medical bills. I play Eustace the Mover (a driver/daredevil), Ezekiel’s younger brother, and Adam Maunz and Tyler Ellis play Zeke the Stringer (a planner/spider) and Earl the Cleaner (a covert hunter/killer), Ezekiel’s two sons.

Our first score was a lucrative stickup job against some college frat molly dealers where Eustace defined himself as a raging trash fire person when he crowbar’d one of the frat-gang enforcers in the girlfriend. Jason’s set up a stash-alike track but for the crew as a whole for Ezekiel’s medical fund, and we put any Cash overflow into that. It was just enough to get Ezekiel’s track from quality 0 to 1, and the tug-of-war clock we have set up to track his condition stayed neutral at 4/8 ticks.

One of the interesting hacks in Copperhead County is that you roll your Stash level to indulge vice. The stinger here is that every new stash level you achieve also comes with some increased Heat, basically from tax evasion. It gives more mechanical heft to Stash besides feeling good about retiring a PC later on down the line. Not that Eustace plans on retiring. We all agreed he’s the most likely to be killed by his family.

The Best Brands Caper

Next was a bit of setup and stakeouts for our next score, fixed up for us by Eustace’s friend, Dante Richman (think Isaiah Whitlock), a retired crook who made it out of the game alive and rich. This guy Sturges wants us to knock over a Best Brands big box electronics store the friday before their grand opening. After a ridiculous fortune roll revealed that Earl’s friend Keller worked the strip mall as a security guard, we decided to get some security uniforms and go for a stealth plan. We’ll see how it shakes out in 2 weeks.

My own notes are that I should’ve brought it more as Eustace. I was only firing on 2/3rds my cylinders due to RL stuff, though, and I missed a perfect opportunity to nab 2XP from my No, Fuck You xp trigger when Zeke accosted me about hitting Amanda with the prybar. Earl and the crew itself did fairly well XP-wise, however, especially considering it was downtime, which is always a little lighter IME.

Taking your Google Docs Blades hack blather and trying to format it properly (and I use “properly” extremely…

Taking your Google Docs Blades hack blather and trying to format it properly (and I use “properly” extremely…

Taking your Google Docs Blades hack blather and trying to format it properly (and I use “properly” extremely loosely) is daunting. It’s illuminating, but daunting.

#glowinthedarkrpg

Glow in the Dark v6 is out!

Glow in the Dark v6 is out!

Glow in the Dark v6 is out!

In Glow in the Dark, your tribe makes runs into the wasteland in search of supplies (to sustain life) and rep (to grow in size and power). This creates friction with other factions in the setting and leads to fallout for your tribe as they seek to rule – or escape – this new world.

Version 6 is hopefully my last major rules pass. I’m switching gears into “make it look nice” mode next, pulling together the last pieces of art, and so on. After the encouragement I received from my most recent art preview, I am tentatively planning on offering it POD once the SRD comes out.

Rules:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B436j88kgCAtZExwRHZrM0xIXzg/view?usp=sharing

Playbooks:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B436j88kgCAtdkYwejIwcVhBa0k/view?usp=sharing

#glowinthedarkrpg

Glow in the Dark: Relics Playtest

Glow in the Dark: Relics Playtest

Glow in the Dark: Relics Playtest

The Final Pam- er, Chapter

The Relics were out in the Barrens (inhospitable wilderness, overgrown with deadly flora and stalked by mutant beasts), hunting down a contingent from the Ape Empire who had managed to clone/hack/kidnap their compound’s AI, SIRI. This was Fallout from their last run, and the players chose to settle it the hard way instead of paying a hefty ransom.

The trio of Nestor the Leftover, Torch the Junker, and Rooster the Driver observed the apes from a few hundred yards out. The simians were on a promontory of cracked earth jutting from the overgrown ruins of a farm, using a fire truck’s ladder to raise some sort of comms dish high enough to intercept the Relics’ transmissions and “steal” SIRI. In addition to an offroad IROC-Z guarding the operation, there were deadly Yaxels (yak-bat creatures) circling the area, plus it would be night soon. You don’t want the be in the Barrens at night. It was a fairly straightforward situation with good intel, so the Relics opted for an Assault plan. Rooster marked “Fine Anti-Vehicular Weapon” and Nestor marked off “Bodytank”. Torch had brought her new invention, a “fire-flinger”, kind of like a potato gun firing napalm bombs.

The engagement roll was risky – the IROC saw them coming, but Rooster’s “Beat the Snake” ability let him fire before the apes could. The Driver’s Carl Gustav recoilless rifle thundered, hitting near the Camaro and blowing off a wheel. The ape’s return fire flew wide, serving only to draw the attention of nearby yaxels (mixed success, doing limited effect and marking a tick on a yaxel clock). Torch’s fire-flinger finished off the hapless vehicle and the apes inside (6, so no blowback from the invention’s volatile flaw).

The apes on the promontory flew into action. Three gorilla-type guards (Macho, Peels, and Konga) dropped prone and crawled to the edge, hoping to return fire with small arms. The apes’ driver and two techs frantically tried to stow the comms gear and get the fire truck moving. Nestor made quick work of Macho, counter-sniping him with a laser rifle before the ape could shoot him or his friends. Torch’s fire-flinger cut off the truck’s escape route as Rooster fired his Carl Gustav again. A crit! Additional effect: surgical precision. The fire truck was immobilized but could be repaired.

Things were going really poorly for the Ape Empire, and I made a middling fortune roll to see how they’d react. The driver just ran for it, and one of the yaxels swooped lower as the ape crashed through thorny brambles. The techs, Baud and Tack, started unhooking the comms gear, planning on carrying the equipment out if they couldn’t drive it out. Meanwhile, Peels and Konga rolled down the promontory and into the cover afforded by the ruined farm. They were still on the attack.

Nestor tried to make his way through the twisted flora up to the fire truck, but Peels ambushed him, leaping off a dilapidated silo and tackling the bodytank to the ground! (risky trek, fail -> desperate position) Ape and man struggled, servos straining against mutated ape strength!

Torch decided the best way to help would of course be to set the farm on fire. A devil’s bargain and partial success later, Nestor and Peels wrestled amidst roaring napalm, but Konga was flushed from her position towards Rooster. It looks as though the driver was about to be caught off guard by a charging gorilla, but Rooster used his trusty Carl Gustav like a baseball bat, smashing the weapon into Konga’s face and knocking her out (full success, prisoner captured, devil’s bargain for broken weapon).

There was still the matter of the two ape techs trying to make off with their truck’s data. Torch snorted her botdust and reached out, making a bizarre wireless connection with the comms gear, searching for the pathways to overload the equipment and shock the apes. She did it, but the feedback threatened to fry her brain (risky, partial success, level 2 harm “brain burn” resisted to level 1 “migraines”) as the nanites overheated with effort. The two apes, thinking their gear was useless now, also retreated into the Barrens.

Peels tore Nestor’s helmet off his power armor and raised her fists for the killing blow, but Nestor has the ability “Pearly Whites”. They shared a desperate moment in the firelight and, although it was perhaps due to the encroaching flames that threatened both of them rather than Nestor’s disarming countenance, Peels relented. The downside was that the heat was rapidly draining Nestor’s power reserves. He was already at 4/8 for his suit’s flaw Limited Power, and I moved to tick 3 more as complications from a desperate Sway roll. He resisted like a boss, however, popping the heat sinks now he wasn’t in immediate combat.

Torch marked armor (a firefighter’s turnout coat) and scrambled through the blaze to the fire truck. Rooster’s attacks had left the fire truck immobile but fixable, and Torch pulled her tool kit out and got to work. The fires spread, both from the farm below as well as her earlier attempt to block the truck’s escape route. The engine wouldn’t turn over! Rooster drove his car, Layla, up the hill and flooded the scene with his highbeams so Torch could see what she was doing. The flames were at the truck now, a desperate situation, and finally Torch got her six. The truck roared to life and burst through the fire.

After their brief standoff and realization that both man and ape wanted to escape the inferno more than they wanted to kill each other, Nestor clambered up the slope and onto the fire truck, leaving Peels to an uncertain fate, shaken to her core by the man who fought like an ape.

~~~

This standout session marks the end of my Relics playtest, and I cannot thank my players Matt Schwaninger, Jason Eley, Logan Shoup, and Thomas Berton enough for their energy and thoughtful feedback.

Today I Learned: The Relics need just a little more help from their playbook prompts, XP triggers, and so on. As they are now, they’re more of a theme rather than a tribe with a purpose or method of surviving the apocalypse. Our playbooks meshed really well, however: Leftover, Junker, and Driver all had a lot of synergy.

Our starting situation back at the start of the playtests was… better than in my first playtest. That’s all I can say. It’s fine. But tribe-specific starting situations might work a lot better. We also talked about “Professional” as a tribe’s reputation in the post-apocalypse. We agreed that there are situations where that might fit, but this tribe of Relics maybe wasn’t embodying “professionalism” exactly. Perhaps each tribe might have a slightly customized list of reputations to choose from, but I’ve been thinking about that and I feel that maybe we just need to tweak the list that’s there a little bit.

I also learned that all my playtest groups have gravitated towards the more gonzo factions. Big Red, the sentient drone semi truck. Noah, the AI remnant of a pre-war weather service. The Monarchs, bug/plant mutant drug dealers. The Ape Empire. Glow in the Dark definitely has room for your car gangs and guzzoline pirates, but the Blacktop Society, Knight Riders, Ash Lords, and so on don’t seem to be as popular.

What’s Next / Roadmap: After I tweak a few things based on this group, I’ll be releasing Glow in the Dark v6 probably in the next week or so.

Thanks again to my playtesters! If you’re playtesting your own hack or are just LFG, this community has resulted in some really wonderful experiences. I was really nervous putting the call out for randos, but I couldn’t be more pleased.

#glowinthedarkrpg